Hegemony is a concept created by Antonio Gramsci (1891-1973).
It’s etymological
meaning comes from the Greek word “hegemon”, a leader or one of prominent
power. Gramsci’s
purpose for developing the concept of hegemony was to “explain how so many ordinary working-class people go along with fascism”. The existence of
totalitarianism was fascinating to him and he sought to explain it.
The concept of Hegemony is a “process whereby the cultural values
of the elites in society become the common sense, taken-for-granted values of
the masses”. (Leroux, Hegemony PP slide 4/10).
This means our cultural values, beliefs, explanations and
perceptions are influenced by our society’ies “social
elites”; the upper class people who are in a position of economic or political
power. These influences form our values. They are the everyday practices we
take-for-granted.
“One particularly disturbing example of hegemony occurred in our
local city of Halifax. During the 1960’s the community of Africville was ordered by
the city of Halifax to be demolished. Community members, who were all of
African descent, were evicted and their belongings were escorted away in dump
trucks. Bulldozers flattened everything in the community. Those who legally
owned property were given small compensation for their land. Unfortunately many
of the residents hadn’t legally owned land so they were given $500.00 and sent
on their way. The proposed purpose for the extermination of Africville was to allow
room for the Mackay Bridge, unfortunately the manner in which the city went
about the removal and the fact the community wasn’t properly and appropriately
compensated for their losses could be viewed as a blatant act of racism.
Is racism completely
to blame or were there other factors involved. Who were the “social elites”? In
this case, the social elites were the mayor of Halifax, council members and
influential decision makers like the contractors in charge of building the bridge.
This relocation had massive physical and mental impacts on all of
the residence of Africville, some people still fight to this day for
compensation for their land and homes.
People were taken from a once beautiful ocean front property and
were relocated in the outskirts of the city; many of the residences families to
this day still live in those areas such as Preston. Many of the people lived
off the land, through fishing and farming. Unfortunately, after the
relocation when dumped in a place in the middle of nowhere, they were left helpless,
with no home or any means of income. They were robbed of their homes and
compensated with a pitiful $500. The mental impacts these people faced must
have been difficult as well, emotional stress, loss of self worth, self-esteem
and feelings of helplessness. The people of this town were treated like animals
and could do nothing about it. How would you feel?
How could the people of Halifax let this happen?
We know from hegemony that our cultural values, beliefs,
explanations and perceptions are influenced by our societies’ “social elites”.
Unfortunately, once an entire society is convinced of something there is little
hope of changing their minds. That is how many mistakes have been made throughout
the history of society.
Here is an interesting video, for more information about the people of Africville
Zach
Nice example of hegemony, I cannot even begin to imagine how the people of Africville would have felt being relocated from their home and compensated with a mere five hundred dollars. None of that seems very fair to me and it is sad to think that this all went on in our city, you always here about these types of things happening in other places but this specific example happened right here and no outsiders did anything to prevent it from happening.
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